Peppermint bark

Hello guys, hope your all well?

Today im going to share with you my recipe for peppermint bark! YUM!   

This is so yummy and perfect for the coming holidays, this would be perfect for a homemade gift! Wrap it up in a festive box decorated with ribbons and coloured tissue paper and you have yourself an inexpensive yet meaningful gift! 

So lets crack on (no pun intended) you will need:

400grams of good quality white chocolate

10-12 candy canes or any peppermint sweets

1tsp peppermint extract (optional) just adds to the flavour 

Method:

Line a baking tray with cling film / plastic wrap or you can use parchment paper or even just grease the tray

Next crush all your candy canes or sweets with a rolling pin you want it to be crushed fine but with a few bitesize pieces in there

Next break up your chocolate and make a double boiler ( a pan of simmering water with a heat proof dish above it making sure the water does not touch the bottom of the heatproof dish ) you want to heat your water on a very low temp otherwise it will burn the chocolate, melt your chocolate and add the peppermint extract 

 

Once the chocolate has melted take it off the heat and mix in 3/4 of the candy canes

Spread the mixture out onto the tray and spread evenly to your own desired thickness 

Finally sprinkle the remanning candy canes onto the top of the mix and leave to set at room temp for approximately 1 hour

 

Once set break up into medium sized pieces and enjoy!

 

Please follow and let me know if you have any requests.

Xxx

Christmas series

Hello guys hope your all ok?

So i recently did a halloween series, that didnt go down very well as i had a horrible virus for the 2 weeks running upto halloween so could not get up as much as i intended, so im going to start my christmas series now so there will be a lot of blog posts for christmas bakes! 

So why am i starting now? Well christmas is hectic and preperation is key, plus i find baking around this time of year the best, its cosy, warm and leaves your house smelling amazing! Plus i am catering for a few charity events in November and December so everything i make for the events i will show you guys how to make them yourself, for the next month or so ill be showing you how to make peppermint bark, festive cupcakes, christmas gingerbread house, DIY edible tree decorations, traditional non alcoholic christmas cake and much much more! 

Please let me know if you have any requests and please follow my blog!

Thank you

Xxx 

Halloween treats....jelly worms

Hiya guys:)

Hope your all well? Today for my halloween series im going to show you a very easy way of making jelly worms! Unfortunately my camera was playing up so i dont have step by step pictures to show you, but it is easy enough to explain......the rest of my halloween series will be posted with pictures!

Without further ado lets get started, you will need bendy straws, a large cup/glass and a packet of ready to make jelly, thats it! 

Place all you straws upright in your cup, follow the instructions on your jelly to make it, its usually just to add boiiling water, carefully pour the mixture into the straws and leave to set again following the instructions on the jelly packet! 

Once the jelly has set push out the jelly worms if they do not come out run the straw filled with jelly under the hot tap and they should come right out.

And thats all you have to do easy right? 

please follow and let me know if you have any requests? Thankyou:)

Xxx 

      

Healthy halloween treats

Hello everyone,

Hope your all well! Fancy something a little more healthy on your halloween table this year......your in the right place! Im going to show you a few very quick and simple ways of spicing up your fruit for halloween:) 

First take an apple pull the stem out dont throw this away we will be using it later. Take a vegetable peeler and peel strips around the apple to give a mummy effect

Next roll 2 small white balls of fondant and place them onto the apple use 2 chocolate sprikles to make them look like eyes, finally take a sharp knife (be careful) and cut a smile shape into the apple, maybe add some teeth and make this a little more scary! And we have a mummy apple! 

For your banana, cut it in half! Cut one of the halves into smaller slices!

 Take one of the smaller slices and add 2 chocolate sprinkles for the eyes and a row of them for the mouth, colour some blue fondant and roll it into leg shapes and place them either side of the banana! You now have a creepy crawly! 

You can also use the banana slices to make individual spiders doing the same process as above but making smaller legs!

For the other half of the banana place a dowel / lolly pop stick through it and using the end of the dowl press two eye holes and one mouth hole, fill the hole with chocolate sprinkles or use chocolate buttons to make a ghost!

Finally take an orange and score lines through it to give a pumpkin effect, take your apple stem and stick it though the top of the orange to give you a mini pumpkin!

Hope you guys enjoyed this! Stay tuned for more halloween posts!:) 

Xxx

Halloween biscuits

Hello everyone,

Hope your all well, so here is the first blog post for my halloween series.....halloween biscuits! YUM!

To make these you will need to first go over to my blog post on DIY edible sprinkles.......done? Good! Now lets get onto the ingredients:

For the biscuit you will need:

•4oz butter

•4oz sugar

•10oz plain flour plus extra for dusting

•1tsp vanilla extract

•1 egg

•halloween cutters, im using a bat cutter and a round cutter for a pumpkin

For the decoration you will need:

•ready to roll icing (fondant) 

•purple, yellow, orange and green food colouring 

•DIY sugar sprinkles again see my blog post on this

•the same halloween cutters you used for your biscuits 

•a little bit of water for the glue and a pastry brush 

So lets get started for the biscuits pre heat your oven to gas mark 4.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add your egg and vanilla extract beat well.

Gradually add your flour until your mix forms into dough you may not need all the flour, if your dough is too sticky add a bit more flour until its firm enough to handle.

 

Place onto a lightly floured surface and knead for a few seconds until pliable, wrap in cling film and place into the fridge for 20 mins.....perfect time to clean up;)

Roll your dough out on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick and cut out your halloween shapes, place them onto a greased baking tray and bake for aprox 15 mins until lighly golden! Then leave to cool completely:)

Now for the fun part!!!!!

Colour your fondant into your chosen colours, lets work on the pumpkin first, lightly cover your board in icing sugar and roll out your orange fondant and use the same cutter you used for your biscuit and cut the fondant with it, stick it on your biscuit with some water!

Lightly brush over the orange fonant with water, roll out your yellow fondant and cut two small circles for the eyes i used the bottom of a piping nozzle for this and stick them onto your biscuits

Using a knife (be careful) cut out a semi circle for the mouth and cut some teeth out and stick your mouth onto your pumpkin! Add a small piece of green to the top of your pumpkin:) 

Finally spinkle your DIY sugar over the top and tap of the excess, it will stick because we lightly brushed the orange fondant with water if its dried up brush some more water on the orange fondant avoiding the eyes and mouth! And tardar we have a pumpkin......

 

Now for the bat same process roll out the purple fondant, cut it with the bat cutter, stick onto biscuit with water! Brush the purple fondant with water and roll out two small balls for the eyes and stick them on, the nozzle was too big for the bats eyes!

Finally sprinkle the DIY sugar onto your bat and we are done:) hope you guys enjoyed the first post for my halloween series! Stay tuned for many more!

Have your tried these? Any requests? 

Happy baking!

Xxx

 

DIY edible sprinkles

Hello everyone,

Hope your all well? In preperation for our halloween series i thought i would begin by showing you how to make your own sprikles, sprinkles from the shop are great but they are quite expensive especially if you want to buy different colours and they come in really small tubs so dont last very long! This way of making sprinkles is very inexpensive and you can make lots and lots! 

All you need is:

A baking tray

Foil

Granulated sugar

Food colouring of your choice

Bowl

Spoon

Thats it! 

 

First off preheat your oven to a very low temp......like gas mark 1.

Next pour half a cup of granulated sugar into a bowl..... I wanted purple and orange  sprinkles so i used 1 cup of sugar split ino 2 bowls

    

Next add a drop of your chosen food colour to your sugar and mix well, gel food colours need a little more elbow grease to distribute the colour evenly....liquid colour works best but it really doesnt matter! I used both here and found it easier to mix with my fingers as the gel colour clumps up a bit so just keep working it! 

Next line a tin with foil and evenly spread your sugar onto it and bake in the low oven for 10 mins, this will not only dry out the sugar from all the liquid but it will make it a bit more sparkly:)

 

Finally leave to cool, the sugar will go hard and clumpy! To bring it back to sprinkles place the sugar in a zip lock bag and break it up with a rolling pin until its fine granuals again! 

Place in a jar and sprinkle away:)

Xxx

Halloween series

Hey guys

Hope your all well? Over the next couple of weeks im going to be doing a halloween series, expect to see lots of fun festive creations and step to step guides!

1st episode of my halloween series will be up tomorrow.......halloween buscuits so stay tuned for that and the rest of my festive how to blogs! Any requests please send them my way:)

Xxx